Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Bumper Stickers

Bumper stickers are a peculiar form of communication, because there is barely enough space to introduce a new idea. Instead, normally old ideas are referenced, so I can know the stranger in the car in front of me identifies himself or herself with environmentalism or Wicca or Jesus. Unfortunately, many bumper stickers are obscure enough that I have difficulty comprehending the statement that the stranger is making.

I have, here, recorded a passel of peculiar bumper stickers. I have included explanations for the bumper stickers with obtuse meanings; some, I could not figure out for myself. I would appreciate conjectures from my readers on the meanings of these more enigmatic bumper stickers.

I saw an old car on the I-195 exit onto UMBC with a total of eight bumper stickers, six saying:
  • Go Climb a Rock: Yosemite
  • Underarmour: Run
  • MS Marshall Street Disk Golf [Marshall Street Disk Golf is a supplier of disc golf equipment in Leicester, Massachusetts.]
  • Disk Golfer on Board
  • Rock me sexy Jesus [This is the name of a musical number in Hamlet 2.]
  • Nader-Gonzales '08

The other two bumper stickers depicted:
  • A flower
  • A giant robot destroying a city

I would like to be friends with the driver of this car, if I'm not expected to be excellent at disc golf.

Driving north on I-795, to the Red Robin in Owings Mills, to hang out with Greg:
  • Gwapa Inside [It looked like an Intel Inside sticker. "Gwapa" is Filipino for good-looking, declined in the feminine.]


In San Antonio, Texas, near the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center:
  • In Guad we trust [This is a reference to Our Lady of Guadalupe.]


I forget where I saw all of the remaining bumper stickers.
A bumper sticker:
  • I heart golfing and biking [The heart was faded out.]


I saw a vanity plate:
  • GTD RNK [I like the Getting Things Done methodology; it is unlikely that this has anything to do with this vanity plate.]


One card had a fake license plate mounted above a real license plate. The fake license plate:
  • A map of Africa, on a background of a green, yellow, and red tricolor of horizontal stripes.

The real license plate:
  • Romans 8

I imagine that the driver of this car is an Afro-centric Presbyterian. I would like to be friends with this person.

A bumper sticker:
  • An icon of a fist with lightning bolts, next to the words, "BEW for Obama/Biden"

2 comments:

  1. "In Guad we trust"
    And they say icons aren't idolatry?


    The afrocentric presby is exciting

    ReplyDelete
  2. Christianity is much different when you're not dealing with white Protestants. Who would've thunk it, Tim?

    ReplyDelete